Cull
by Salchat
Summary: John discovers that a friendly planet has been culled by the Wraith. His team help him to deal with his suppressed emotional pain.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Dr Jennifer Keller smiled across at John Sheppard as he powered up the jumper with a light-hearted flourish. It had been a good day.

"I inoculated forty-eight children today against Pegasus flu," said Jennifer. "I examined babies, I distributed vitamins, I did a restock of all their medical supplies," she continued, with satisfaction.

The jumper lifted off and John set course for the orbital Gate.

"The only thing is...," she hesitated. "I prescribed a few more antibiotics than I actually had with me, so..."

"Happy to," said John, interrupting. "Drop off a few more tomorrow, I mean. More than happy to!"

"They're great people, aren't they?" smiled Jennifer.

"They make great pies, they play great ballgames, what's not to like?" he said, dialling up the Gate. "Don't tell McKay about the pies," he added thoughtfully, "or he'll want to tag along and he'll eat my share."

Jennifer mimed zipping her mouth closed. IDC accepted, the little ship dived into the event horizon.

oOo

The following day saw the jumper pop through the Gate again and retrace its route down to the planet's surface. The small population was clustered in a hilltop settlement which had spread out to a secondary village on lower, more fertile ground. The day before, John had landed the jumper right in the centre of the village atop the hill and he planned to do the same today. There was an open area where there were sometimes temporary stalls, but the locals had offered to leave the space clear to make things more straightforward for John, in their typically friendly fashion.

As John rapidly lost altitude he began to feel uncomfortable. Something was twitching at the edge of his senses. He circled the hilltop at a height of around one thousand feet; there was no smoke. There was always smoke from cooking fires but today the air was clear. John felt something tighten in the pit of his stomach; an anticipation of disaster.

He landed the jumper and immediately saw what he had dreaded. He rose slowly from his seat, left the pack of medical supplies on the floor, picked up his P90 and slipped the LSD into a pocket in his vest. He stood for a moment, closed his eyes, opened them again and released the hatch.

The village was still and silent. Where yesterday there had been talk and laughter, work and play, today there was a blank emptiness. The village was lifeless. John stepped forward down the ramp and stoically looked around at the marketplace, the shops, the houses.

His eyes widened. His breathing sped up. A muscle in his jaw twitched. The fingers of his left hand fidgeted on the grip of his P90, rubbing back and forth. Everywhere he looked there were bodies; drained of life they lay all around him. The village had been culled by the Wraith.

But this was no ordinary cull. This was no ghostly deserted place with the shock of a corpse here and there and the almost greater shock of the stripping away of most of the population, torn from their homes and lives by the beam of a Dart. This was a wholesale massacre, a feeding frenzy. The Wraith must have arrived in force, savage in their desperate hunger. They had fed and fed and fed and marked this place with their barbarity by the total extermination of its people.

A part of John's mind remained separate, commenting coolly on his reaction to the unimaginably tragic scene before him. Would he scream in horror? Would he run? Fall down? Be sick? Cry? These were all normal reactions. No. He carried on. He took out the LSD and looked at the display. It showed no life signs at this end of the village. John knew his duty. He would check the whole village and then he would check the lower village, down the hill and over the stream. This needed to be done and would be done.

He walked steadily, his route allowing the LSD to take in the whole area. His movements were smooth, efficient, his countenance impassive, just the occasional tell-tale twitch along his jaw and the constant fidgeting of his fingers on the LSD, random movements as if the adrenaline pumping round his body had to have some outlet, and John would only allow himself these tiny little flicks and twitches. He would not compromise his duty as he saw it.

John passed body after body, drained, dry, desiccated, devoid of life. He walked on. He saw both young and old reduced to the same pitiful condition. There were certain things that he snapped his mind shut on and simply would not allow himself to register, although he knew they would return in vivid detail later, in his room, when he was alone; a blue dress, a red cape, a white hair ribbon. Had he a less tight grip on his thoughts he could name these poor people, he could picture their living faces in his head as they had been just a short day ago, hear the words they had spoken to him.

To continue was torture, to give up would be a dereliction of duty, both in abandoning possible survivors and, in some way, John felt that to observe was to honour these people. To see the full extent of the massacre was to give them the respect they deserved. Each and every death would be seen and acknowledged.

Almost he ran. Almost. When he saw the ball and recalled the game of yesterday the pain in his heart was so great that it was almost too much and he needed desperately, with a soul deep longing, to be gone. But he stayed.

At last it was done. The whole area scanned and found lifeless. John returned to the jumper, entered, stowed his P90, sat down in the pilot's seat.

He covered his face with his hands and closed his eyes. His mind felt frozen. He didn't want to think about what he'd just seen, couldn't think about it. Couldn't let himself remember the day before, the people as they'd been, their kindness, their laughter, their simple everyday ordinary humanity. He hid in the darkness of his hands and did not want to come out and face the world. But he did. He forced himself to lower his hands, gritted his teeth, took a deep breath, did all those things you have to do sometimes to carry on with the life you've been given, to play the hand you've been dealt.

He powered up the jumper, took off, headed home, his horror contained, his grief stamped down and pressed into the furthest corner of his thoughts; a hard, hard, black, black point of pain, crushed in the fist of his mind so very tightly to allow him to keep going and do his job.

He approached the gate, dialled, sent through his IDC mechanically. Went through the gate, up to the jumper bay, docked, all with ice cold detachment.

There was no debrief planned. It had just been a simple delivery run, not really a proper mission at all. John's feet took him down the stairs, past the Control Level, eyes front, avoiding all interaction. He found himself standing at the threshold of Elizabeth's office. Just standing, with no words, until she looked up and noticed him.

"John! You're back!" She began to smile but her face froze and then fell. "John, what's wrong? What happened?" She half rose from her seat.

He began to speak, stopped, cleared his throat. His jaw ached with tension. "Culled," he ground out. "They've been culled, they're all gone. I mean... all dead. They didn't take any, they just..." He swallowed. "There were no survivors." The separate part of his mind wondered how those words could have been spoken. Should they not have been screamed, shouted?

Elizabeth sat back in her chair, stunned. "Oh, John! No survivors... you checked? Yes, of course you did."

She stood up, moved round the desk toward him, reached out a hand. He stepped back, looked down. His hands, at his sides, began to clench into fists, but he deliberately stretched out his fingers, denying himself the expression of anger and grief.

"I'll write it up. A report. Soon." He kept his eyes fixed on the floor.

"Do you need...? Can I...?" Elizabeth didn't know how to offer comfort to John. It felt as if he were far away, across a huge chasm; a chasm that he'd deliberately placed between them to isolate himself in the darkness.

"No." A single word and he was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

John didn't remember dropping off his vest and P90 but they were gone by the time he reached his quarters. Alone, he felt his heart rate climbing, felt his body begin to tremble. He turned on the shower, took off his boots and socks and then froze. Something inside him quit and he couldn't think. His mind was too full. Image after image came before him, from today and from other days and other years far back into his past.

He stumbled blindly into the bathroom and into the shower and let the water run over him, trying to wash away the pain and the guilt that he had buried. All the horrors that had been squashed and stamped and forced hard, down as far as he could make them go and not allowed to ever, ever see the light of day began to seep up through the cracks that had been made in his defences.

The deep well of grief that filled his heart, the pain that ran like a black thread of anthracite through his soul, all the dying and the killing and horrors that he had seen and the suffering that he believed he had caused, all of the things that he had refused to deal with began to force their way up and out and he shook with the force of his anguish.

He fell to his knees and knelt, water pounding on his back and let the images come: the blue apron of the woman who had given him a loaf of fresh-baked bread, the generosity shining in her eyes; the red-caped old man who had stood, leaning against a gate and chatted, with simple pleasure, about the weather, the harvest, his grandchildren; the white hair-ribbon of the little girl who had taken his hand and laughingly dragged him into a game. All these he saw again in his mind's eye, living as they were yesterday and then transformed as he had seen them today, the fabric of their clothes the only indication of the people they had been.

Other images crowded his mind, people he had lost, people he should have protected, actions he had taken, choices he had made; all the regrets and pain that he had suppressed came surging up. And then in his mind's eye was his mother's face and with her image came the grief that nobody had helped him manage all those years ago and was still there inside him.

His mind and heart could hold it all back no longer and it was released; a great, silent sob, his breath forced out of him in a series of tearing jerks, out and out and out until his lungs were squeezed tight and all his muscles were rigid, his fists clenched, his teeth grinding, even his toes curled hard with pain. Then a rasping, sharp inhale and another endless silent forcing out of the accumulated grief and guilt and anger of years; on and on so that the small part of his mind not consumed with pain wondered if he could stop and wasn't sure if he wanted to.

John didn't notice the water being turned off. He didn't notice the towel being placed around his shuddering body. He barely noticed when somebody knelt next to him, awkwardly in the small shower cubicle. Gradually he became aware of arms around him, a hand drawing his head against a warm shoulder, someone rocking him, whispering meaningless soft words. They stayed, a witness to his anguish, a steady presence when he felt the foundations of his life had been swept away. He was exhausted with grief but a voice said, "Breathe. Slowly. Just breathe." At first he couldn't get control; his lungs jerked and shuddered as if they'd forgotten their normal rhythm, but the voice encouraged him and he kept trying, so that eventually, still with the occasional hitch, he breathed long and slow and his muscles began to relax. He sagged against the warm, solid presence and felt the turmoil recede.

John felt his whole body become heavy and he drifted toward sleep, but the voice said, "No, not here," and he allowed himself to be manoeuvred out of the shower, out of the bathroom and onto his bed. He felt the wet clothes being peeled away and he mechanically moved arms or legs when told until he realised he felt warm, with dry clothes and was sitting on the edge of his bed with a blurry, concerned face peering into his own.

He blinked and the face resolved itself into a pair of familiar blue eyes watching him with concern and a mouth, not curled into cutting sarcasm but drooping with anxiety: Rodney. Their eyes only met for a second and then each looked away, the moment of naked honesty, of raw emotion that they had shared, over.

Rodney got up and John's pulse began to race. He didn't want to be alone yet, but wouldn't say it. Even after his long-overdue catharsis, he was still the same man, unable to put into words his emotional needs. But Rodney wasn't going.

"I brought you this," he said, offering John a mug. "It's probably cold by now, but, anyway..."

John took the mug in a slightly trembling hand and drank. Hot chocolate, still warm.

"Thanks," he said raspily.

The door chimed. Rodney said, "Um... That's probably Ronon and Teyla. Is it okay...?"

John nodded.

Ronon sidled in and stood leaning against the wall, unsure, arms folded across his chest.

Teyla walked directly across the room and gracefully folded to kneel at John's feet. She knew better than to ask how he was feeling. She saw that the mug was empty, took it from his slack grasp and passed it to Rodney. Then she took both of John's hands in her own. For a moment she sat, silent and calm and they each felt the bond that they always shared flow physically through their joined hands.

Then Teyla began to speak.

"When we first met, I told you of our life. I told you how the Athosians live under constant threat, that we teach our children not to be afraid. All our lives, we live with the knowledge that each day could be our last. Our lives will either continue," she gestured one way with her left hand, "or they will end." Her right gestured the other way.

"Fifty-fifty," John said, softly.

"Fifty-fifty," she repeated, taking his hands once more. She paused, breathing calmly, formulating her words. "What I did not explain fully that day is that the necessity of living in this way is a great gift." John's head came up, tense, his jaw tight once more. "You misunderstand. I do not mean that the Wraith cullings are a gift. It is the value we place on our lives, the ability to see clearly what truly matters that is the greatest gift anyone could possess. For us, the constant threat, the ever-present awareness of our own fragile mortality makes our time so precious that sometimes life feels almost unbearably sweet. We live each day with joy, truly experiencing every moment with appreciation for the ordinary, with full awareness of what it means to have each other, the ones we love, close to us.

"That is why we greet each day with ceremony, enjoying each other's company; that is why meditation is a strong part of our culture, because it enables us to gain even greater joy from each moment that we are given." She regarded their joined hands, squeezing John's in her own and then looked up, their eyes meeting. "The people you saw today, their lives have finished. But how their lives ended does not negate how they were lived. Those people had joy and laughter and much, much love in the time they were given. The Wraith may have ended their lives but what they had can never be undone."

John nodded and he dropped his head, unwilling for Teyla to see through his eyes to the feelings that lay behind them. She let go of his hands and folded her own quietly in her lap.

Ronon shifted awkwardly and cleared his throat, embarrassed. He spoke, gruffly, but with determination.

"You know when sometimes you think: 'That's it. One more thing and I won't be able to keep going'? And then, that one more thing comes and you do. Keep going." Ronon lifted his head and his eyes met John's. "This is you, still going, still fighting. Still living."

There was a moment of silence when all that had been said and done hung in the air between the four teammates.

Then John sat up straighter. He stretched his stiff, tired muscles and yawned and rubbed his hands through his still-damp hair.

"Rough day?" said Rodney, perched on the side table.

John huffed out a breath that was almost a laugh. "Yeah, rough day," he acknowledged. He looked round at his team. "Erm... Thanks. Thanks, Guys, for... you know," he waved a hand in the air.

Ronon grunted. Rodney made an indeterminate chirping noise. Teyla said, "You are welcome, John."

John stood.

"We should go," said Rodney.

"No, that is, I think..." began John. He rubbed a hand through his hair again. "D'you wanna go... look at the stars?"

They trooped out and made their way to the nearest balcony in close formation, a shoulder, a hand, occasionally touching as if by accident, the bonds they had formed almost visibly reinforcing. John stood against the railing, Teyla to one side, Rodney to the other, Ronon looming behind.

John gazed into the infinite depth of the night sky and breathed deeply of the salt-laden ocean air. He still knew the bite of grief and the regret of friends, colleagues and strangers lost. He knew that these burdens would always be his to bear. But he felt that something inside him had been released; a pressure had eased. The tight core of suppressed emotions deep inside him had cracked and he knew that with his friends' support he could learn a new way to bear his burdens; a new way to accept the losses with less guilt and live the life he had been given with joy in each moment.


End file.
